


the relativity of time and how it affects stanford pines

by kitchensink



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Character Study, Habits, Implied Relationships, Other, growing up (sort of), referenced abuse, self tattooing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 08:25:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6322168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitchensink/pseuds/kitchensink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every morning at precisely six fifteen Stanford Pines wakes up and promptly goes outside to sit on the stairs just outside of his bedroom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the relativity of time and how it affects stanford pines

i. 

Every morning at precisely six fifteen Stanford Pines wakes up and promptly goes outside to sit on the stairs just outside of his bedroom; it's during this time, as the sun slowly crawls into the sky, that he can clear his mind and relax against the aging wood without too much trouble. 

He can hear the creak of the house, the way it moves as everyone else wakes up. Mom first, after him, who makes coffee at six-thirty and has a cup ready for Philbrick when he's up at six-forty. If Shermy is over, he's up next along with the baby, usually at seven-oh-five but it could be a half an hour more. As each person wakes up, the house seems to wake up, too.

There used to be Stanley, too - up last, who would see him outside their shared space and sit down next to him, tell him about 'this wild dream, Sixer' or knock his shoulder lightly with a knee to say good morning. 

But Stanley doesn't live here anymore. 

At seven-forty five, Stanford finally creeps down the stairs and is greeted by his family in their usually, "Good morning, sleeping beauty." 

ii. 

Old habits are hard to break - it's funny, really, because Fiddleford is the one who points out that Ford is always up at the same time every day, no matter if he had just gotten to sleep an hour before or actually rested like a normal person. More than a few hours a night have been particularly fleeting, though, ever since he met Bill. 

Since moving out of his childhood home he'd had to find another place to sit for an hour and thirty-five minutes to just relax; at first it'd been the floor in his living room, the the stairs to the upstairs, until finally it was out on the front porch be it rain or snow or some other kind of storm. 

This house doesn't wake up the same, but he had expected that. There are times when Fiddleford stays over (in his own bed, might he add) so there's that to look forward to. But, his schedule is just as varied as any other McGucket, so it's impossible to really hear the world stretching and waking up with them.

Instead, Ford sits on the porch with his legs folded criss-cross and stares at the forest stretched in front of him. He doesn't flinch when he sees eyes looking back, but when voices start enticing him to come closer, usually around eight, he finally heads back inside his home. 

iii.

Bill becomes his go to for a lot of things, eventually. The demon has him in the palm of his hand and Ford knows it and hates it but it's just so hard for him to break away from the stream of praise he is consistently given. 

His mornings turn from relaxation to meditation to prayer to begging, _please, don't leave me. everyone's left me, don't leave me._ To bargaining by digging ink covered blades into his skin to etch out tattoos depicting his eternal worship in exchange for the solace that he will never be alone again. 

And all at once, it's gone. One day Ford wakes up - that on it's own being strange - and Bill hadn't infiltrated his dreams once. He'd tried to summon him - nothing. He'd yelled, slammed his equipment around, picked at the scabs that laced themselves over his arms but still, there was nothing. He worked on the portal because it needed to be perfected, because maybe there was a chance in hell that way. 

Habitual tendencies rose up in him like a flame again. Adorned constantly in long-sleeved attire now, to hide the scarred and rough ink, he returned to the steps of his porch. He listened for the house to wake up, for his mother or father or for Shermy, for Fiddleford, for Bill, for Stanley. 

He heard nothing. 

iv.

Sadness is ever consuming, and so is loneliness. Sure, the vast eternal void of dimension and time travel can be interesting, funny, and intriguing sometimes, but otherwise, wandering aimlessly through time after time can be very hard on the psyche. Ford learns this quickly, and thus adapts. 

There's no time for ritualistic awakening; there's hardly time for sleeping unless he can scrounge up a few bits of currency used in whatever dimension for a hotel room, but even that kind of thing is rare. Mostly, he winds up in apocalypse riddled places with only the barest bones of civilization left. Mostly, he prefers those to the ones actually inhabited.

Dimensions with other humans are always the worst - sometimes he feels so out of place that when another person speaks to him he can hardly manage a response. Sometimes, all he wants to do is find a bar. Sometimes, Ford just leaves through the rip that he came in. 

Others, though, he'll explore, should he feel up to it. He'll steal because he can and sneak it past the Galactic Federation dogs that lurk, undercover, around every turn. He'll find someone just to fuck or just to talk to and imagine that everything is okay, that it's his life and after days like these he'll sit just outside the door of wherever he is at six fifteen exactly and just _breathe._

v. 

Sunrises in his home dimension were more beautiful than sunrises anywhere else. While scientifically untrue, Ford kept this opinion close to his heart as he rolled a pencil around through his fingers and kept his eyes on the forest. Eyes still peaked at him, curious, as if wondering if they were seeing correctly - he waved instead of ran, unafraid of what this world had to offer when he'd seen things so strange. 

Ford wasn't up on habit this time, more of connivence. Sleep wasn't coming to him, even after thirty-years dimension hopping where a beds were far and few. But, despite this, he found himself relaxed into the wood steps, breathing in the cool morning of somewhere resembling home. 

And now the house was waking, if not constantly alive with Dipper and Mabel running through the halls in more-often-than-not bare feet. At eight he could hear them, and at eight-thirty he could hear his brother shuffling down from the bedroom, gurgling about coffee with his always too-loud voice. His home stretches and bows with every person awake inside of it.

He doesn't say so, especially not to anyone in the house, but he's more than grateful to be back, even if it means his portal is destroyed. 

The habit becomes just that again; within days of returning and finally getting some sleep, Ford is back at it. Six fifteen, on the dot, outside and staring out into the forest. When eight arrives and so do the voices asking him to come into the forest for a peek, he no longer turns to flee. He's unafraid now. 

At eight-thirty, Ford will go inside, and relish privately in the happy greeting, "good morning." Because finally, in what feels like a life-time, everything - _mostly_ everything - is okay.

**Author's Note:**

> did i Really just stay up to write this thing? yes , yes i did


End file.
